


Whumptober 2019

by pastel_x_tea



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Angst, Delirium, Explosions, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, Hypothermia, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Paranoia, Tags May Change, Whump, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019, check chapter 3's notes for explanation of my update schedule, hello naughty children it's whump time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2020-01-29
Packaged: 2020-11-22 03:13:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20867264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastel_x_tea/pseuds/pastel_x_tea
Summary: Full list of prompts here: https://whumptober2019.tumblr.com/post/187785964678/whumptober2019-october-approaches-and-so-does and each prompt will also be listed in the notes at the beginning of each chapter along with appropriate TWs!Whumptober is upon us and you know I had to do it to 'em. Go forth for 29 days of hurt and 2 days of comfort at the very very end. Please enjoy!





	1. My Big Mistake Was Showing Up

**Author's Note:**

> Day One: "Shaky Hands"  
TWs: self-harming behaviors, depiction of a panic attack, brief mention of homophobia

The second floor boys’ restroom in the corner by the melted vending machine was always vacant. This morning, it had a population of one that wasn’t planning to leave any time soon. With his feet up on the seat and his back pressed against the cold metal of the flush valve, Dib Membrane had locked himself securely in the only stall with a door.

He was taking deep yet rapid gulps of air, the near-silent bathroom permeating with the harshness of his breaths. He hadn’t been this way when he woke up, or even when he’d loaded into his father’s automated car to take them on the same programmed route to school that he and his sister took every single day. But it seemed the closer he got to the school, the tighter his chest became. He had only spent five minutes in class before it had suffocated him entirely and he rushed to this unlikely safe haven of his.

He stared down at his trembling hands, a surefire sign that his brain had detected some non-existent danger signal and was in the process of waging war against his rational thought. His hands began to blur in his vision as the tears welled up in his eyes. 

He wouldn’t cry, he wasn’t going to cry. If he cries, he told himself, he’d have to return to class at some point with puffy eyes and tear trails down his cheeks. His pathetic sniffling and shuddering post-cry breaths would be a dead giveaway to everyone, his wet face a lightning rod for ridicule. He balled his fists up, fingernails clutching the edges of his coat sleeves, adopting his tormentors’ cruel language into his mind in an attempt to harshly remind himself not to be weird and gay and annoying and a loser and a pussy. He would hit himself too, if he could, so he did. He bashed his clothed fists on either side of his head, first asking, then threatening, then begging the tears to stop coming.

But it was no use. Tears were stubborn things, and whenever they wished, they would spill themselves fourth, salty and painful and humiliating. Dib retracted his useless fists further into his sleeve and used his jacket to wipe his eyes, as he had so many times before. He whipped his glasses off, laid his arms across his knees, pressed his eyes against them, and cried. His spectacles dangled from his fingers until he lost his will to grip them and they clattered to the ground, neglected in the spectacle Dib was making of himself now. The warm tears soaked his sleeves as he tried and failed to keep his sobs silent. He had a strong urge to throw decorum to the wind and just scream, vocally releasing this terrible fear that had come out of nowhere until his voice was strained and it hurt to breathe.

The devil Dib knew, he could adequately handle. If it was fear of Zim, he could devise a plan to stop him. If it was fear of Gaz, he could stay out of her way, perhaps take her on an excursion to Bloaty’s after school (not like their dad would care.) And if it was about Dad... well, if it was about Dad, he could just push it down until their next yearly family night. But when it was a sudden, crushing, irrational fear, the devil Dib didn’t know, there was nothing he could do but to curl up and cry. Was this a new fear, a fear of nothing at all, nothing tangible and fightable and repressible? Or was this simply the unholy amalgamate of all of his other fears bubbling up to haunt him on a day they weren’t invited to?

He wanted to go home. He wanted nothing more than to lock the door to his room and crash onto his bed, cold and soothing air washing in waves over his anxious body, to fall asleep and not wake up until the early, early morning, when the city was dark and quiet and his worries were swept away with the sunlight. But he was in no condition to even go to class, much less to run home, no matter how safe he knew it would be there, so he simply kept himself curled up as the second period bell came and went. 

In the passing period, as he listened to the scuffling of shoes and chattering of children, he almost hoped that someone would find him in here. Not a typical tormenter, and by god, not Zim, but just _someone_. Dib wasn’t even sure if this _someone _existed, but if they did, he willed them to be in this skool, in this hallway, in this moment.

But the universe didn’t seem to put people like that in his skool, did it?

Five minutes later, another bell sent out its shrill call and commanded every student to retreat back into their classrooms. Every student except Dib. A broken child crying in the broken restroom. Nothing to see here.


	2. The Innocent Can Never Last

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2: "Explosion"
> 
> TWs: major character death/death of a parent
> 
> Thank you guys for bearing with me as I work through this prompt list! I know I'm not doing one per day but I am in the middle of school so I'm writing as much as time will allow.

Dib had always thought of death as a gradual thing. Death seemed to live in the shadows until old age or illness beckoned it forth, its darkness encroaching on someone’s life like the night fell upon the land as the sun slowly set. Death came to visit like a distant family member, lingering in the very back of people’s minds until he came to spend a few days in town. Death would come gradually, making hints as to his appearance until finally, when he came to knock on your door, you had the guest room prepared and the whole family gathered to ease their visit. Then, just as slowly as it had come, it would depart again, until everyone it had touched in its stay began to once again live without it.

Dib had never seen death in a pair of suits, standing on his doorstep. This death was stern and still, but it was far from the tranquil vision he’d conjured in his mind when he’d thought about the concept.

There was hardly any time given to pleasantries upon the arrival of the men. They, in fact, didn’t seem personally involved in the matter in the least. They treated the occasion with the same consideration as seeing a dead celebrity‘s name and face headlining the newspaper as you grabbed your morning coffee. _Ah, that’s a shame,_ your remark in your mind, even if it was nobody you’d had any personal attachment to, or had even heard of beyond brief mentions on the TV and the tabloids.

But, of course, everyone had heard of Dib’s father.

He could still remember every detail of that evening. The men had arrived at the door a few hours after Dib and Gaz had returned home from school. While Gaz had rushed up to her room to immerse herself in her game (as if she hadn’t already been immersed in it all day as is), Dib had sat at the kitchen table, working on homework. Even world-saving pre-teens who spent every day fighting aliens and building and operating incredible tech had to do homework. By the time the doorbell rang, he had gotten to the stage where his papers were splayed across the table and he was doodling in his notebook only half-pretending to work. He’d drawn a diagram of Zim’s known anatomy, along with constructing several hypotheses as to the purpose and exact location of the squeedlyspooch.

Then the doorbell rang.

His first emotion was ironic, misplaced excitement. He hoped that perhaps this visitor had brought his new alien-hunting gear: an auto-camouflaging body suit, an alien-transmission-translating earpiece, or a pair of triple-zoom spectrespecs. He approached the door with an emotion approaching giddiness, mind swirling with the thought of how much proof he could get, the “I told you so”s he could dish out, the awards and acclaim he’d win. He opened the door with his head still in the clouds, and was greeted by the stern, broad men in suits dragging him back to reality.

“Are you Dib Membrane?”

It wasn’t often that people asked for him by name. Usually, the knock at the door was followed with “Is this the Membrane residence?” or “Is your father home?” or “Have you accepted our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ into your heart today?” Once, it was a scientist rushing into his house and to her father’s lab without so much as a “hello". 99.999% of the world had no clue who Dib Membrane was, much less a reason to ask for him by name at the door.

“Oh, uh, yeah, that’s me,” he confirmed. When two men in suits came to your door and asked for you, a ten year old boy, by name, he reckoned it was best to comply.

“May we come inside?” They entered without an answer and sat on the couch. One crossed a leg over the other, knee to ankle, propped up on his elbows, while the other sat with his hands clasped in his lap. Dib supposed the first was trying to give off a casual, friendly, open air, but he found himself even more unsettled. “You’d better get your sister.”

So these people not only knew who and where he was, but also about his little sister? _Either Gaz has finally killed somebody,_ he thought, _or these are Irken spies._ He looked them up and down before he headed to his sister’s room. No greenish skin, distant eyes, or protruding bolts indicative of an Irken construction. The lack of these traits sent a shiver up Dib’s spine.

He knocked on Gaz’s door, which was met with the electronic “blip” of her game pausing and, eventually, the door creaking open to reveal in the darkness a sliver of Gaz’s unamused face.

“Hey, Gaz? There’s some guys in the living room, and, uh...” Well, to be honest, he didn’t know anything more than that. The men hadn’t even said more than ten words to him before inviting themselves onto his couch. He shrugged and looked at the floor. “Seems pretty, uh, serious. I guess.”

Gaz grumbled and pushed past him, flouncing into the living room and hopping up on a chair opposite the couch. Dib followed close behind and chose to stand, hands awkwardly shoved in the pockets of his coat.

“Kids,” the first man began, looking at both of the Membranes in turn. His gaze then turned to the floor, then the ceiling, and finally, he seemed to take a deep interest in the dying potted plant in the corner. His partner quickly picked up the slack.

“There was a, um... an _incident_ today at the Membrane labs. And unfortunately-“

“Where is my dad?” Dib was surprised by the force and speed with which the words shot out of his mouth. He dug his nails into the fabric of his pockets, feeling consumed with an inexplicable and untargeted anger that burned at his stomach. Rather than admitting he knew the answer, he again repeated the question, growing even more irrationally indignant. “_Where is my dad?_”

The most terrible two words Dib had ever heard followed. There were objectively worse words in the world (pus, phlegm, and slough all came to mind), but no words carried the same weight as these two. These were the words that caused pillars of life to crumble in an instant, verbal shots through the stomach and stabs to the heart. Two words that caused people to cling to the sleeves of their loved ones as they left, hands lingering on shoulders and hugs lasting a moment too long, with even the most joyous of occasions being tinted gray with the fear they brought about. Two words that were so rife with emotion and yet so completely empty and soulless, hanging in the air over one’s head like the sword of Damocles. Always there, but never acknowledged. Always coming, but never seen.

“We’re sorry.”

He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that there were times when death did not arrive gradually, or even offer the slightest inkling that it was coming. Thinking back on the day, he hadn’t had any indication that anything out of the relative ordinary would occur. He hadn’t even experienced those little things people report that gave them a gut feeling something was wrong- no sudden chills, no “off” feeling, no mysterious mood drop or sense of impending peril. Nothing had told him that his father would die that day. He’d talked to his dad over video that day, in fact, as the family always tried to take time to do during breakfast. There weren’t even any big arguments or harsh last words to regret. His dad had left them with a cheery wave and an “I love you both!” before his screen went to static.

It was a day like any other, except now his father was dead.

He glanced over at Gaz, as he didn’t know of anywhere else to look besides his own feet. She was almost perfectly still in her chair with no readable expression on her face, like a hollow wax statue on display. Her hands were the only part of her that moved, balling up into tiny fists and shaking ferociously. She rose slowly from the chair and lingered there for a second, aware of all of the eyes trained on her, before retreating to her room with uncharacteristically gentle steps. Moments later, the sounds of her game once again filled the house, this time with the volume cranked to 100.

Dib stared next at the men who had brought death into his happy home, and they slowly returned the gaze. “It was a particularly... terrible accident involving a critical malfunction of your father’s thermodynamic energy generator. Your father as well as four of his assistants have been identified by their dental records, so luckily it’s... not necessary for you to attempt identification of the body.”

That was the last thing the men said to him. So terse and matter-of-fact. Even so, they had been sitting casually in his living room for the past half hour. Dib’s feet had been rooted into the carpet behind the couch, his arms folded over the cushion and his head down. He wasn’t crying; though his heart yearned to, his eyes couldn’t find the tears to release. He breathed deeply into the fabric of the couch, filling his lungs with the comforting scent of home. “Home” wasn’t usually a smell Dib could pinpoint, as it smelled so familiar to him that it usually smelled like nothing. But home seemed so far away now, and the scent of it calmed him. Without looking, he knew that the men were still there.

What were they waiting for? Perhaps they were the temporary placeholders for the people who actually cared. Or maybe they were there to make sure the kids didn’t run away or off themselves before child services came to take them in. He sighed into the couch, feeling the hot air push out and fog up his glasses.

Dib was waiting for the world to feel like it’d changed, he supposed. Sure, he was now carrying a near-crying feeling with no relief and a deep pit in his stomach. But the universe didn’t feel any different. The birdsong and soft sound of rustling hedge leaves beneath the windows took no pause, the colors of the world were still objectively as vibrant as they were the moment prior, and time kept mercilessly passing him by, leaving him stuck half an hour in the past. 

_The world keeps turning, things keep going without you,_ he realized.

Your father gets labs and university buildings and stars named after him, and yet he remains a ghost. They never even found enough of your dad to return to you. Explosions will do that. His headstone in the sunspot under the spindly willow tree is purely for show. You’re torn from the only home you’ve ever known, given thirty minutes and a black garbage bag to pack up ten years of your life. The home that your father built with his bare hands is left vacant, nothing more than a memory, the etched heights of phantom children still sunk into the kitchen doorway. You haven’t seen your sister again since that day; with your only family dead, foster care is your only option, and some parents don’t want siblings. That’s just the way it goes.

And still, the world carries on.


	3. Paranoia (Everybody's Coming to Get Me)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3: "Delirium"
> 
> TWs: Paranoia
> 
> See Chapter Notes at the end of chapter for an explanation of my update schedule (if that's something that interests you).

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

The gentle ticking of Dib’s clock in his ears was becoming a deafening toll, making it difficult to focus. His eyes darted from screen to screen, view to view, camera to camera, keeping constant watch despite the distraction. If a single fly moved or faucet dripped in Zim’s house, he would know about it. He has to. If he didn’t keep continuous watch on the alien trying to exterminate his species and take over his planet, who would?

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

Dib didn’t know how much time had passed in total, but he did know that each repeated click of the clock hand represented another torturous second passing him by. One more second Zim had to train, to plot, to grow stronger. Another moment in which Zim’s whereabouts mysteriously evaded him. Zim had never gone this long without making himself known as the blithering pest he was, and while everyone else at skool was somewhat relieved, this frightened Dib unlike anything else. The longer he lie in wait, the bigger and more dangerous his plan was sure to grow. The entire world and everyone he knew was in danger, and all the responsibility for stopping it fell on the shoulders of a ten year old boy. 

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

That was a lot of pressure on him, but it wasn’t like he could let it go. There was no way he could just sit around and let Zim destroy the Earth… he lived here, goddamnit. He’d long since learned to cope with the fact that his efforts stood alone, but at times he looked upon his extensive research, his Irken spaceship he’d spent hours reverse engineering, and his hundreds (yes, hundreds) of cameras and thought with increasing frustration… did they really have to? He was a little sick of it, to be completely honest. Nobody helped because nobody listened, nobody looked, nobody was even willing to give him a chance. Even when his family was humoring him, he could see clearly the doubt lying just behind their eyes, and it was this doubt, he believed, that plugged the ears and clouded the vision of everyone around him.

Sometimes, he would lie awake and wish for normalcy. He always wondered how it’d feel to be like all his peers. To go to skool and be average, with average comprehension, average grades, all falling perfectly in line with his equally average skool. Perhaps he’d even have some average friends (only an average amount, of course, no need to be greedy.) They would talk about normal things and all be normal kids with normal interests together. Sure, the world would be ending around him, but he wouldn’t know it and therefore wouldn’t have to worry about it or try to fix it. Usually, he scoffed at the phrase “ignorance is bliss”, but when he found himself imagining this life, he very much hoped it was true in that instance, for the sake of the theoretical him.

A world in which he was mundane rather than Membrane. What a thought, indeed.

Without fail, every time this longing overtook him, he was hit with an extreme guilt to snuff his misguided hopeful flame. Again, the question came up: _if not him, then who? _In this imagined world he’d created, Zim would win and billions would succumb to their unknown doom. For what reason did they all have to die? In the interest of Dib’s anxiety-free life of meaningless interests and social conquests?

No, that wasn’t something he could let happen. Even if only in his normal-sized head.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

He leapt to his feet, his chair spinning behind him as it skittered wheels across the floor mat. The blood rush blackened his vision, but he could still see the taunting pearly face of the clock through the dark fuzz. His legs were asleep from disuse, teetering with the sudden movement and threatening to topple him over with each step, but he was propelled forward by the sheer force of his rage. He hated this clock, and he needed it gone, _right now._

He pried the clock off the wall and flung it into the ground, watching its cheap plastic face shatter and come loose from its backing. Still unsatisfied with its level of destruction, he stomped down on the flimsy clock with tremendous force. The plastic crackled under his boot, the sickly crunch it produced satiating his misplaced rage. And so he stomped. And stomped. And stomped.

The incessant ticking of the taunting timepiece finally faded as the clock’s internals were reduced to splintered plastic and stray batteries on the floor. The only sounds that remained were Dib’s haggard breathing and the gentle whir of the computer tower. Shoulders heaving, Dib slowly turned back to his screens. He’d truthfully lost track of time- had he spent only a few moments destroying the clock, or had it been minutes, hours even? He was supposed to keep a diligent watch over the cameras; if his focus lapsed, even for a second, Zim already had the upper hand. His eyes darted from screen to screen to screen as he cursed himself for letting his mission be clouded by irrationality. Skool, nothing, front yard, nothing, taco stand, nothing…

… and then a shadow streaked through Zim’s living room.

Rubbing his eyes, Dib quickly glued his eyes to the screen. There the shadow still lurked along the very edge of the camera’s sight, something he had never seen before. He redirected his gaze to the nearby kitchen camera, and his vision was confirmed. The shadow stood boldly in the far corner of the kitchen, teasing Dib with its arrogant audacity. “Come and get me,” it seemed to cry, and Dib could almost hear Zim’s shrill voice ringing in his skull.

As Dib watched the dark figure, a sudden flicker of motion caught his eye. The shadow was slinking across all his screens, marking each with its alien presence. It wasn’t limited by distance, or number. In fact, the darkness was now… everywhere.

There was no question in his mind. Zim was back.

Dib flung the door to his room open, the doorknob denting the drywall from the force. He sped down the stairs faster than his legs could keep up with him, tumbling down the last few steps until he reached the front door. Twisting open the lock with trembling fingers, he creaked the front door open so as to not awake his disapproving family. If only they knew… but no matter. If this battle had to be fought alone, just as all his others had, then so be it.

The cold air hit him in an instant, the chill pricking up tears in his eyes. He shuffled out into the snow, his house’s neglected sidewalk coated in a thick layer of sleet. The cold air whipped against him relentlessly, forcing the frigid denim of his pants against his body and stinging his exposed skin. Softly shutting the door behind him, he continued down his front drive, planting his feet in the deposits of snow that peppered the path.

Even the wind seemed to be his enemy as it pushed him backwards, throwing still-falling snowflakes into his face/ Worse still, the shadow still loomed in corners of his vision. Typical Zim. Always right there, close enough to taunt him but too far away to grasp. But no longer. All he had to do was find his way to Zim’s base. Then finally, finally, he could put a stop to him, once and for all.

So many sleepless nights, so many cuts and bruises and scars, so much of his life wasted chasing Zim. Hours and hours spent in front of those screens, constantly looking over his shoulder, lying awake in fear of a threat nobody else could see. He was going to end this, right here, right now. He just… didn’t know exactly how yet.

Because at the end of it all, he was angry, and tired, and… hot. When had it gotten so hot? How long had he been walking for? He tugged his trenchcoat off by the sleeves, letting it fall discarded in a heap on the road behind him. Removing it offered him little relief, so he simply stared down at his bare, flushed arms, hoping to see anything but the shadow. His numb, red fingers swam before his eyes. His vision all around was full of blotches and swirls. The only certainty was that dark presence. Zim… following him… watching him…

The red spots in the snow.

Directly in front of him, little red dots peppered the blanket of snow, piercing Dib’s cloudy vision. What were these specks? Could they be… no. No, he couldn’t be too late. Nothing had happened here, Zim couldn’t do that and there was _no way_ he was too late. He was going to… he had to, he needed to stop him.

He stared at the spots, trying to collect his thoughts. The spots stared back. They had eyes… no, they were eyes. Red eyes… where had he seen so many eyes like that before?

He looked up, away from his hands, away from the ground. A purple house sat silhouetted by the rising sun, staring down at him on the sidewalk. He’d made it! Wait… how long had it taken him? It'd been dark when he left... and where’d his coat go?

No matter. This was going to end, and it was going to end now. _Now now now._ He took a step toward the house; his legs felt heavy, and it felt like he was running in a dream- running as fast as he could, incredibly slowly, and not seeming to get anywhere. His voice cracked as it spat forth that one word, a plea and a stern command all at once.

“Zim!”

_You won’t get away with this! I don’t know what you’re doing, or when, or how you’re doing it, but I’m… I’m going to get you, and… and stop you, and… CHOP you into little tiny pieces. Of course, most of it will be saved for research, but I think I might mount your head on my wall. Like a hunting trophy, you know? That’s what you’ve been doing. Hunting. Preying upon the ignorant human race. How does it feel to be prey, Zim? To be cornered by the apex predator, knowing there’s no escape? There’s nothing you can do, huh, Zim? You must feel hopeless. Hopeless hopeless hopeless! Just like I did! But now… NOW… you’re going to feel every single second of what I’m going to do to you. Every last bit of what you’ve put me through these past two years. Mocked like the tiny… weird… WEIRD… scum that you are. As soon as I… get to that door…_

Dib would have said all of this, but he couldn’t feel his face anymore. He wasn’t sure what he’d said, or if he’d said anything at all. Where was his coat? All he felt was numbness. All he saw was white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I usually don't like to add "personal" notes to my stories, usually they're small notes about the story itself, but I feel like I should explain the three month hiatus. Though I love "-tober" prompts, unfortunately for me they started right around the time when I needed to start getting very serious about school for the semester. Without disclosing much about me, I'm in a notoriously difficult major/school track, so I really have had to put my head down through October, November, and December (which was why there were only two updates, both in October). I've been working on this prompt on and off (as well as on my winter break) for a while, and only just now finished it. School's been back for about two weeks now, and hopefully since I'm managing it better it'll be some time before I have to put my head down like that again (if at all, fingers crossed!) Writing takes a backseat to my studies, though, so I apologize if updates are slow or stop for a while.
> 
> If you're interested in keeping up with the updates, the best thing to do is to either subscribe to my account or subscribe to this fic itself. I promise this isn't a shameless plug- it's the only way you'll get consistent notifications about when I update, because I can promise it will be sporadic.
> 
> Thank yall for being patient, and I hope you all are enjoying what I write in this fic and on my account!
> 
> As for Dib... well. Wait and see.


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